What would Don Draper do? Rules for restoring the contemporary agency mojo

What are the timeless truths of advertising? How can agency leaders manage their teams, their creative talent, and clients? To answer these and other questions, the mythology of the ‘Golden Age of Advertising’ is examined and analyzed herein. Specifically, using ad man Don Draper—protagonist of the fictional, but already culturally iconic, television series Mad Men—as a mythic archetype, lessons are extracted for contemporary advertising practitioners. Ten timeless rules are proposed and explicated in the areas of (1) managing intra-agency leadership processes, (2) managing creative processes, and (3) managing client relationships.     

Mythical representations of trust in auditors and the preservation of social order in the financial community

The present paper investigates financial practitioners’ use and perception of audited financial statements. In-depth interviews, which we conducted with Canadian institutional investors, financial analysts and bankers, indicate: (1) a firm tendency to favour the quality of management over the content of financial statements in investment decisions and recommendation processes; and (2) a fundamental scepticism regarding the work of auditors. However, representations of auditor trustworthiness abound in formal texts surrounding the financial analysis domain—as if audited financial statements and the trust they convey towards numbers are indispensable to the work of financial analysts. Based on the work of Roland Barthes, we argue that financial practitioners’ trust in auditors constitutes a mythical representation whose main function is to maintain order and reproduce status quo within the financial system.     

鲁迅《故事新编》的神话思维

《故事新编》是鲁迅一部独特的小说集,其创作过程涵括了鲁迅思想发展的多个时期,呈现了颇为复杂的思想内涵和审美风貌;其独特的创作方法与现实意义,也蕴含着鲁迅复杂的神话观,也启迪了后来的文学创作。文章着重探讨了鲁迅的神话观,分析了《故事新编》的神话思维及其现实意义。     

The role of conflict, culture, and myth in creating attitudinal commitment

Using qualitative methods, the authors examine commitment in the sports industry and specifically in a NASCAR context. Commitment, or the culmination of the customer-service provider relationship, plays a particularly critical role in NASCAR, for which more than 70% of fans consciously choose a current sponsor's brand over a competitor's. Previous research, primarily in the domain of business-to-business marketing, focuses on attitudinal, instrumental, and temporal components of commitment; this article examines attitudinal commitment within the NASCAR context. Whereas previous research conceptualizes attitudinal commitment as identification, value congruence, and affiliation, this research presents a wider view. Specifically, within the NASCAR consumption culture, hero/villain myths surrounding drivers create conflict that heightens attitudinal commitment to the sport. This research therefore offers implications regarding non-traditional components of attitudinal commitment.     

鲁迅《故事新编》的神话思维

《故事新编》是鲁迅一部独特的小说集,其创作过程涵括了鲁迅思想发展的多个时期,呈现了颇为复杂的思想内涵和审美风貌;其独特的创作方法与现实意义,也蕴含着鲁迅复杂的神话观,也启迪了后来的文学创作。文章着重探讨了鲁迅的神话观,分析了《故事新编》的神话思维及其现实意义。     

Hero brands,brand heroes: How R.M. Williams inspired a cult following and created a shared sense of meaning

Brands become relevant to consumers via storytelling, and archetypal myths in popular culture inform this effect. The hero is an archetype of enduring interest, yet as the marketing literature is replete with heroic undertones, the scope of empirical research is limited and dominated by North American perspectives. To address this shortcoming, this study explores Australian consumer relationships with hero archetypes to provide a contemporary view of how consumers enact brand myths. An in-depth case study of R.M. Williams, an iconic Australian brand, shows the relevance of iconic heroes and reveals how historical archetypes can evolve to address emergent consumer-brand storytelling needs. The study identifies several novel archetypal patterns which contribute to a deeper understanding of how consumers enact brand myths. These archetypes influence consumers in their consumption quests, reconciling social needs and facilitating their immersion in the brand’s story. To improve consumer-brand engagement, marketers must focus on engaging consumers with the brand’s narrative through the strategic use of archetypal myths.